WIST Quotations

Kerr, Jean -- Essay (1970 ca.), “Confessions of a Sea-lubber,” Holiday magazine

Dave — Mon, 19 Oct 2026 17:46:48 +0000

Being on a ship is something like being pregnant. You can sit there and do absolutely nothing but stare at the water and have the nicest sense that you are accomplishing something.

Jean Kerr (1922–2003) American author and playwright [b. Bridget Jean Collins]
Essay (1970 ca.), “Confessions of a Sea-lubber,” Holiday magazine

Specific issue of Holiday unknown. Collected in Penny Candy (1970).

Carlin, George -- Book (2004), When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?, “Euphemisms: Political-Interest Groups,” “A Bunny in the Oven?”

Dave — Wed, 12 Nov 2025 17:07:33 +0000

The fanatics have another name for fetuses. They call them the pre-born. Now we’re getting creative. If you accept pre-born, I think you would have to say that, at the moment of birth, we go instantly from being pre-born to being pre-dead. Makes sense, doesn’t it? Technically, we’re all pre-dead.

George Carlin (1937–2008) American comedian
Book (2004), When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?, “Euphemisms: Political-Interest Groups,” “A Bunny in the Oven?”

(Source (Audiobook); dialogue verified)

Mitchell, Margaret -- Gone with the Wind, Part 4. ch. 38 [Scarlett] (1936)

Dave — Wed, 04 Sep 2024 12:46:21 +0000

Death and taxes and childbirth! There’s never any convenient time for any of them!

Margaret Mitchell (1900–1949) American author and journalist.
Gone with the Wind, Part 4. ch. 38 [Scarlett] (1936)

On death and taxes, see Bullock.

Ehrenreich, Barbara -- “Hers” column, New York Times (1985-02-07)

Dave — Wed, 13 Dec 2023 23:11:50 +0000

We are talking about a nine-month bout of symptoms of varying severity, often including nausea, skin discolorations, extreme bloating and swelling, insomnia, narcolepsy, hair loss, varicose veins, hemorrhoids, indigestion, and irreversible weight gain, and culminating in a physiological crisis which is occasionally fatal and almost always excruciatingly painful. If men were equally at risk from this condition — if they knew their bellies might swell as if they were suffering from end-stage cirrhosis, that they would have to go nearly a year without a stiff drink, a cigarette, or even an aspirin, that they would be subject to fainting spells and unable to fight their way onto commuter trains — then I am sure that pregnancy would be classified as a sexually transmitted disease and abortions would be no more controversial than emergency appendectomies.

Barbara Ehrenreich (1941–2022) American feminist, journalist, political activist
“Hers” column, New York Times (1985-02-07)

Reprinted as "Their Dilemma and Mine," The Worst Years of Our Lives (1990)

Martial -- Epigrams [Epigrammata], Book 6, epigram 67 (6.67) (AD 91) [tr. Marcellino (1968)]

Dave — Fri, 15 Jul 2022 19:28:19 +0000

Do you ask me why this girl prefers
Eunuchs, that race defiled?
She’d rather get her fill of sex
Then fill her belly with child.

[Cur tantum eunuchos habeat tua Caelia, quaeris,
Pannyche? Volt futui Caelia nec parere.]

Martial (AD c.39-c.103) Spanish Roman poet, satirist, epigrammatist [Marcus Valerius Martialis]
Epigrams [Epigrammata], Book 6, epigram 67 (6.67) (AD 91) [tr. Marcellino (1968)]

(Source (Latin)). Other translations:

Pannicus, dost wish to know
Why thy Gellia favours so
The priests of Cybele? To sport
She loves, and pay no suffering for't.
[tr. Anon.]

Do you ask, Pannicus, why your wife Caelia has about her only priests of Cybele? Caelia loves the flowers of marriage, but fears the fruits.
[tr. Bohn's Classical (1859)]

Do you ask, Pannychus, why your Caelia consorts with eunuchs only? Caelia looks for the license of marriage, not the results.
[tr. Ker (1919)]

Do you ask whyt your Caelia has only eunuchs, Panychus? Caelia wants to be fucked, but not to have children.
[tr. Shackleton Bailey (1993)]

Why, with eunuchs, is Caelia beguiled?
Because she wants sex, with no chance of a child.
[tr. Ericsson (1995)]

Your Celia keeps company with eunuchs:
Pannychus, do you find this odd?
It’s the child she hopes to be spared,
Pannychus, not the rod.
[tr. Matthews (1996)]

Housman, Laurence -- (Attributed)

Dave — Thu, 30 Sep 2021 14:48:58 +0000

If Nature had arranged that husbands and wives should have children alternately, there would never be more than three in a family.

Laurence Housman (1865–1959) English playwright, writer, illustrator
(Attributed)

Kennedy, Florynce -- Speech, Washington, DC (15 May 1971)

Dave — Mon, 24 Apr 2017 22:36:52 +0000

If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.

Florynce "Flo" Kennedy (1916–2000) American lawyer, feminist, civil rights activist
Speech, Washington, DC (15 May 1971)

Quoted in Off Our Backs (24 Jun 1971). Gloria Steinem, who also used the phrase, later claimed it was said to her and Kennedy by an "old Irish woman taxi driver" in Boston, but she attributed it at other times to Kennedy herself. More info here.